第14章 普遍者、個別者、固有名 n.12 - 完全な相似性?
論理外の領域の先天的な直観を認めることを嫌う人々にとっては、この理論は、先天的な総合的知識のある種のものを片づけてしまうという長所をもっている。 (たとえば)「AがBの前にあり、BはCの前にあるならば(注:時間的順序など)、AはCの前にある」という陳述はたしかに総合的(なもの)であり、かつ、それは先天的(なもの)であるかのように思われる。しかし、私の理論によれば、それは依然として総合的(なもの)でありながら、もはや先天的(なもの)ではなくなり、ひとつの精神の瞬間的内容を成す複合物の全体がそっくりそのまま再度現われることは決してないという我々の経験からの一般化にほかならないということになる。 経験論者の見地から言えば、これは明確にひとつの長所である。 |
Chapter 14, n.12There is, however, still a difficulty, and it is one which, in 1911, I thought insuperable. It cannot be thought logically impossible for two states of mind to be exactly similar. One might argue that this cannot occur in one person’s experience owing to the difference between the accompanying memories on the two occasions. But such complete similarity might, so far as logic can show, occur between the experiences of two different people, A and B. If this were to occur, my present theory would compel me to say that the state of mind of A is numerically identical with the state of mind of B. At first sight this seems preposterous. We feel that it must be possible to find or construct things having the property that, if one is before the other, then the two are numerically different. I think, however, that this view results from undue excursion of experience into the field of logic. So far as experience goes, we never find such complete recurrence. The total contents of a mind at one time are never, so far as we can discover empirically, exactly similar to the contents of that mind at any other time, or of any other mind at any time.For those who do not like a priori intuitions in an extra-logical realm, this theory has the advantage of disposing of certain instances of a priori synthetic knowledge. The statement, 'if A is before B, and B is before C, then A is before C' is certainly synthetic, and feels as if it were a priori. According to my theory, while it remains synthetic, it ceases to be a priori and is a generalization from our experience that the total complex making up the momentary content of a mind never exactly recurs. From the point of view of an empiricist, this is a definite advantage. |